Despite the Evidence Page 9

  It all came over so pat, thought Kerr. A lesson she had learned perfectly, or was it the patness of truth? He silently swore. Goddamn it, it couldn’t be the truth!

  ‘It was such a relief when he learned you weren’t too badly injured.’ She laughed. ‘He told me he’d invited you here and meant to give you a crack-up evening because if you did turn up it would show you were completely recovered.’

  ‘You can tell him I’m back to normal,’ said Kerr, ‘and that this evening is really something.’

  Paula spoke to Helen. ‘And are you enjoying it?’

  ‘Of course I am,’ she replied. ‘After all, it’s something we’d never normally have been able to do.’ She suddenly flushed as she realised her words might sound ungraceful.

  Paula played with one of the two rings on her fingers: it was a solitaire diamond and the diamond flashed ice-cold lights of brilliant purity. She noticed Helen was looking at it. ‘Isn’t it lovely? Gervaise gave it to me for my birthday.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Helen, trying to sound enthusiastic — diamonds were not her favourite gem stone — to make up for her previous gaucherie.

  Paula twisted her wrist several times and the diamond coruscated.

  ‘I also like that other ring of yours,’ said Helen, certain she had not sounded enthusiastic enough.

  ‘This one?’ Paula touched a broad silver ring, beautifully engraved, on her little finger. ‘Gervaise insisted on going last month to a funny little hole of a place in Wales called Llanrhysnog — have you ever been there? If you’re not a sheep, there’s absolutely nothing to do but look at the cold sea. It’s no wonder all the natives are completely stupid. I just had to buy something to try and cheer myself up. There was a bit of a junk shop and this ring was the only thing in it I could bear to look at.’

  ‘But the engraving is super. Is it English?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’ve no idea.’ Craftsmanship meant nothing to her, only the value counted. She looked at their glasses. ‘Why aren’t you drinking? Hurry up and finish and have some more.’

  ‘Not for me, thanks,’ said Helen.

  ‘But I won’t say no to the offer!’ Kerr finished his drink and the slightly warmed liquor became velvet fire inside him. He watched her refill his glass about halfway up the bowl. Tonight they were really living like the gods.

  ‘How did you enjoy the show?’ asked Paula. She filled her own glass three-quarters full.

  ‘I thought it was very good,’ replied Helen.

  ‘You weren’t shocked?’

  Helen’s manner suddenly became much less friendly as she wondered whether she was secretly being laughed at for a country cousin. ‘No. Am I meant to be?’

  ‘I don’t know. Gervaise says he tries to shock people just a little.’ Paula seemed not to have realised that Helen had taken offence and she spoke with the same friendly eagerness. ‘If it’s not too shocking, Gervaise reckons they start thinking they’ve become worldly and therefore aren’t shocked at all and they come back to prove it.’ She laughed. ‘That’s all too complicated for me. I’m stupid and don’t understand.’

  She didn’t need brains as well, thought Kerr.

  Paula emptied her glass and refilled it. She looked at Kerr’s glass. ‘You haven’t started on yours. Would you rather have something else?’

  He was not prepared to admit to her he’d drunk enough for the evening. He lifted his glass. ‘I was just taking it easy.’ He drank.

  ‘Why do that? When we’ve finished this bottle we’ll shout for another. Gervaise said you were to enjoy yourself. So pass me your glass.’

  As he held his glass ready for Paula to fill up, he suffered a kick from Helen. Didn’t she know he’d a strong drinking head?, he thought, forgetting his own conclusion of only a short time before.

  Paula replaced the bottle on the table. ‘How are your injuries, really?’

  ‘I’m fine. The stitches are coming out soon and then my hair can grow and give me back my manly beauty.’

  Paula giggled. ‘D’you feel like that Samson bloke after his hair was cut off — no strength?’ She stared at him with her deep blue eyes.

  ‘Try me.’ Cutting off a bit of hair hadn’t robbed him of any of that kind of strength. He sipped his drink.

  ‘John . . .’ said Helen, then stopped. She was frowning.

  Belatedly, he realised his repartee was not making him popular.

  ‘I might just take you up on that,’ murmured Paula. She took out her cigarette case, opened it, and offered him a cigarette, leaning forward to do so. Kerr just managed to stop himself checking whether her cleavage was as generous as he estimated.

  Paula drank. ‘Gervaise said you didn’t seem to recognise him the other day?’ She was experiencing slight difficulty in speaking some words.

  Kerr shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s not surprising. That first time the night was stormy, I’d only one headlight to see by, and in any case it wasn’t long before I got laid out.’ He managed to sound as if any doubts he might have had had long since all gone.

  Paula put her hand on his. ‘I’m so glad you weren’t badly hurt.’ She ran her fingers over his.

  The head waiter had been standing nearby and he approached the table and asked if Kerr would like a cigar. He called over a waiter, who brought a selection of cigars and Kerr chose one. The waiter cut it for him and struck a match. He had just finished lighting the cigar when he looked up suddenly and thought he saw an odd expression on the head waiter’s face, as if the other were trying to attract Paula’s attention. The expression was gone before he could be certain.

  Paula leaned across towards Kerr again. ‘Don’t miss the second cabaret.’ She giggled. ‘There’s a little blonde in it who’d have you guessing and no mistake. Even with all your hair growing. Shall I tell you . . .?’

  The head waiter spoke to her in a voice too low for the others to understand. She shook her head angrily, but something more he said seemed to scare her. She drained her glass, stood up, and said she must be going, and threaded her way between the tables to one of the doors marked ‘Private’. The head waiter also left.

  ‘Whew!’ said Helen. ‘What a woman!’

  ‘Terribly coarse,’ agreed Kerr.

  ‘Don’t you think you can hoodwink me into thinking she didn’t have you panting hard. I wouldn’t leave you alone with her for a single minute.’

  ‘Not even for one?’

  She relaxed. ‘You’re always boasting you’re a fast worker.’

  They left an hour after the finish of the second cabaret, half an hour before the club was due to shut. When they reached the C.I.D. Hillman, parked just round the corner, Helen held out her hand. ‘Give me the keys, John.’

  ‘You’re surely not suggesting I’ve had enough drink to affect me?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You don’t know me, then. In any case, I’ve got to drive myself back from your place to the hostel.’

  ‘You’re sleeping at home.’

  ‘I’ll go for that,’ he said, with sudden enthusiasm.

  ‘On your own, on the settee in the sitting-room.’

  Midnight always brought Cinderella down to earth, he thought a trifle mournfully as he handed over the keys.

  *

  Tarbard threw another couple of small logs on to the fire on Sunday morning and a shower of sparks rose up the chimney. He remembered the enormous Yule logs which forever epitomised the Christmases he had known as a boy.

  ‘He doesn’t remember anything much about Tuesday evening,’ she said, yet again.

  He looked across at Paula, lying on the settee, with her legs at such an angle that much of her thighs were visible. Apparently, she’d been pretty drunk the night before, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was wrong in her judgement. Had the detective at last come to the conclusion that his memory was wrong and the person he’d seen in the Jensen had been Gervaise Tarbard? This, despite the missing finger-tip? Or had his superiors made it clear to
him that his best bet was to take the easy way out? Or had he out-deceived Paula? It was fascinating to work out the possible combinations and try to decide from all available evidence which was most likely to be the truth.

  ‘His girl’s an odd little nobody,’ said Paula scornfully. ‘Talk about Miss Prim.’

  A detective constable could hardly take care of someone like Paula, he thought: Paula’s drink bill alone was far more than a detective’s total income. ‘Are you sure he didn’t say anything at all of importance?’

  ‘I’ve told you everything.’

  ‘Why the hell did you get so tight that you couldn’t have understood anything he did say?’

  ‘I didn’t, Gervaise. That bastard of a head waiter’s lying, like always.’

  He jammed his hands in his pockets. Perhaps it was silly of him to worry. After all, he’d made certain that the senior detectives would dismiss as totally unreliable anything Kerr had to say.

  She spoke suddenly, blurting out the words. ‘Gerry, what’s happening?’

  He looked at her. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘But I swear I won’t tell anyone——’

  ‘Forget it,’ he said harshly. Occasionally, she infuriated him: a naturally secretive man, he’d always hated people who kept on and on asking questions, even if such questions were totally innocuous.

  She looked at the cocktail cabinet and then at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. He knew she was trying to decide whether she dare start drinking or whether, since he was there, it was still too early. ‘I’m going out. I’ll be back for lunch,’ he said. The family had come together every fourth Sunday for luncheon, even the vague relations who lived a life of financially cramped respectability in London. They’d sat down fifteen or twenty at the huge oak refectory table which almost unbelievably had been made from one piece of wood.

  ‘When are we going to Cannes like you said?’ she asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. There were times now when her physical attractions no longer compensated for her mental shortcomings. Although she’d amused him in the past, it would be no great loss when she had to go.

  She seemed to sense the trend of his thoughts and be a little worried by them because she went over and began to caress him. He pushed her away and ignored her shrill anger. She poured herself a drink and looked at him as if hoping to see disapproval.

  He left the house just after eleven. As he drove the M.G. along the lanes, he thought how similar in character it was, though bearing absolutely no similarity in design, to his father’s old Speed Six Bentley. He’d raced that wonderful old monster around the long, circular drive trying to get under the minute from a standing start. After making fifty-nine seconds he’d crashed into the rock garden: this had upset the rocks, but not the leviathan.

  He reached the Forestry Commission plantations beyond Firthden and parked in a natural lay-by. A check on the time showed that Spinks was now late: Tarbard hated unpunctuality. A few splatters of rain hit the windscreen and began to slide down the glass. He looked up at the sky. It was grey and bleak and promised heavy rain. In the winter England was only good for hunting and shooting.

  A clapped-out, rusting Ford Consul drove into the lay-by and in his rear-view mirror Tarbard could just make out the round, balloon face of Spinks, peering uncertainly at the M.G. Tarbard left and walked back to the Ford, climbed in the passenger side and carefully made certain his short-length coat wasn’t ruckled as he sat down.

  ‘I didn’t know . . . I wasn’t sure,’ bleated Spinks.

  He’d probably thought the Flying Squad and the whole of the local C.I.D. had been packed in the M.G.’s boot, Tarbard thought derisively. It was odd to think that the very nervous Spinks was a warder at Fortrow prison with a reputation of being a real mean bastard of a screw: no doubt, a classic example of a man acting a part to hide the truth.

  ‘It’s not on,’ said Spinks, his voice rising sharply.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s been shifted to another working party until Thursday.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘Nothing’s been said. He was just shifted.’

  ‘Has there been some sort of leak?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that. I swear it ain’t anything like that.’

  Tarbard thought quickly. The delay was of no significance provided Spinks was right and Cantor’s shift was fortuitous. ‘Will he be back in the laundry party on Thursday?’

  ‘That’s what he’s been told.’

  ‘Then we’ll move Thursday. Your job is to see the three of them are up to the wall at exactly eleven by the church clock.’

  Spinks licked his thick lips with a tongue that was unpleasantly pink. ‘I hope no one starts thinking afterwards. I may have to hold ’em back which will be unusual. If it seems like there was inside graft . . .’

  ‘Do the job properly and no one will be able to pin anything on you,’ snapped Tarbard. Spinks was nervous, but he was heavily in debt to a couple of bookies who used the chiv boys to help collect: he needed two hundred pounds within the week to avoid having his face sliced up into raw mince.

  Tarbard tried to ease his back into a more comfortable position, avoiding the worst of the lumps in the seat. When Lowther had died it must have seemed to any ordinary person the job was done for, but he’d refused to admit defeat and had changed his plans quickly and expertly. As a result, he was going to spring Cantor from jail. When Cantor was free, two and a half million pounds worth of jewellery would be that much closer.

  *

  It was Sunday, but with so much work in hand the staff of the forensic laboratory were having to work seven days a week. The assistant examined the rusted, headless nail in the ladder-back chair and swore. There was so small a stain on the nail that he was going to have to work to the finest tolerances.

  He scraped off part of the stain and dissolved the very small flakes in a potassium hydroxide solution to which a drop of sulfhydrate of ammonia had been added. He then examined the solution under a microspectroscope. The spectrum of hemochromogen was present so the stain was blood. He scraped off and dissolved most of the remaining blood in a saline solution. This was left for several hours whilst he got on with other work, then he centrifuged the solution to obtain a clear liquid which he mixed with human antiserum. A white precipitate formed: the blood was human.

  He tried to type the blood but failed. As by now it was almost six in the evening, he was not sorry to decide that no further work could be done.

  Chapter Eleven

  Menton, the detective chief superintendent from county H.Q., looked first at Kywood, then at Fusil. ‘It seems there isn’t much that is definite,’ he said, his voice slightly ironic in tone.

  Kywood, sitting uncomfortably on one of the two chairs in front of the desk, stared at Fusil to tell him to make some answer.

  ‘You’ll remember that’s what we said at the beginning, sir,’ Fusil said.

  Menton looked at him from slightly hooded eyes, set in a thin face and below a deeply lined forehead. ‘Quite. But why bother to forward a report on the incident to county?’

  ‘It took place right on the border.’

  Menton sighed. ‘I am well aware of that, Inspector. What I’m trying to get across is the fact that, wherever it took place, there doesn’t seem to be much significance in it.’ He spoke slowly and carefully, as he would have done to someone not very bright.

  Fusil’s mouth tightened, but he kept his voice calm. ‘If the man in the crashed Jensen was Lowther, but Tarbard went to elaborate lengths to hide the fact, then surely there must be very strong reason for this? Since Tarbard had form, it seems to us there may be a big job in the offing.’

  ‘You don’t think you’re really straining the facts?’

  ‘No, sir, not if you remember——’

  ‘After all, the odds are that your D.C.’s evidence is so much moonshine.’

  ‘He’s my most reliable detective,’ said Fusil, now definitely straining the facts.

>   ‘But you know, Bob, he had been drinking.’ Kywood wanted to make it obvious he had had his own doubts from the beginning.

  Menton now sounded bored. ‘I really don’t think we need trouble ourselves over this matter. . . . Whatever you people in borough do.’

  Menton believed borough C.I.D. to be a bunch of hicks, thought Fusil angrily. He spoke loudly. ‘I’m satisfied that D.C. Kerr most definitely did not have enough drink to distort his powers of observation.’

  ‘Possibly,’ murmured Menton disinterestedly.

  ‘The man in the crashed Jensen was quite definitely missing the tip of the middle finger of his right hand.’

  Menton looked up at the clock, an expression of irritation gathering on his face.

  ‘Furthermore,’ continued Fusil belligerently, ‘D.C. Kerr identified Lowther immediately from the profile mug shot and hasn’t a shadow of doubt it’s a correct identification.’

  One of the three telephones rang. Menton lifted the nearest receiver, spoke only in monosyllables when he wasn’t listening, and replaced the receiver without bothering to say goodbye. He leaned back in his chair. ‘You were saying, Fusil, that it is your considered judgement that your D.C. was unaffected by drink and actually saw what he reported? Further, that his identification of Lowther as the man in the Jensen must be regarded as infallible?’